LS8 


Copyright,  1913,  by 

THE  BIBLIOPHILE  SOCIETY 

All  rights  reserved 


GIFT 


. 


NOTE 

The  letters  herein  by  Lincoln  are  so  thoroughly 
characteristic  of  the  man,  and  are  in  themselves 
so  completely  self-explanatory,  that  it  requires 
no  comment  to  enable  the  reader  fully  to  under 
stand  and  appreciate  them.  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  philosophical  admonitions  in  the  letter 
to  his  brother,  Johnston,  were  written  on  the 
same  sheet  with  the  letter  to  his  father. 

The  promptness  and  decision  with  which  Lin 
coln  despatched  the  multitudinous  affairs  of  his 
office  during  the  most  turbulent  scenes  of  the 
Civil  War  are  exemplified  in  his  unequivocal 
order  to  the  Attorney- General,  indorsed  on  the 
back  of  the  letter  of  Hon.  Austin  A.  King, 
requesting  a  pardon  for  John  B.  Corner.  The 
indorsement  bears  even  date  with  the  letter 
itself,  and  Corner  was  pardoned  on  the  following 
day. 


THE  ORIGINALS    FROM   WHICH   THE   WITHIN    FAC 
SIMILES  WERE  MADE  ARE  IN  THE  COLLECTION 
OF  MR.  WILLIAM  K.  BIXBY,  AND    THROUGH   HIS 
COURTESY  THEY  ARE   REPRODUCED   FOR   MEM 
BERS  OF  THE  BIBLIOPHILE  SOCIETY 


Washington,  Dec.  24th,  1848. 
My  dear  father :  - 

Your  letter  of  the  7th  was  received  night  before 
last.  I  very  cheerfully  send  you  the  twenty  dol 
lars,  which  sum  you  say  is  necessary  to  save  your 
land  from  sale.  It  is  singular  that  you  should 
have  forgotten  a  judgment  against  you ;  and  it  is 
more  singular  that  the  plaintiff  should  have  let 
you  forget  it  so  long,  particularly  as  I  suppose 
you  have  always  had  property  enough  to  satisfy 
a  judgment  of  that  amount.  Before  you  pay  it, 
it  would  be  well  to  be  sure  you  have  not  paid  it ; 
or,  at  least,  that  you  can  not  prove  you  have 
paid  it.  Give  my  love  to  Mother,  and  all  the 
connections. 

Affectionately  your  son, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


[Written  on  same  page  with  above.] 

Dear  Johnston :  - 

Your  request  for  eighty  dollars,  I  do  not 
think  it  best  to  comply  with  now.  At  the  vari 
ous  times  when  I  have  helped  you  a  little,  you 
have  said  to  me,  ''We  can  get  along  very  well 


now,"  but  in  a  very  short  time  I  find  you  in  the 
same  difficulty  again.  Now  this  can  only 
happen  by  some  defect  in  your  conduct.  What 
that  defect  is,  I  think  I  know.  You  are  not 
lazy,  and  still  you  are  an  idler.  I  doubt  whether 
since  I  saw  you,  you  have  done  a  good  whole  day's 
work,  in  any  one  day.  You  do  not  very  much 
dislike  to  work,  and  still  you  do  not  work  much, 
merely  because  it  does  not  seem  to  you  that  you 
could  get  much  for  it.  This  habit  of  uselessly 
wasting  time,  is  the  whole  difficulty;  and  it  is 
vastly  important  to  you,  and  still  more  so  to 
your  children,  that  you  should  break  this  habit. 
It  is  more  important  to  them,  because  they  have 
longer  to  live,  and  can  keep  out  of  an  idle  habit 
before  they  are  in  it  easier  than  they  can  get 
out  after  they  are  in. 

You  are  now  in  need  of  some  ready  money; 
and  what  I  propose  is,  that  you  shall  go  to  work, 
"tooth  and  nail,"  for  somebody  who  will  give 
you  money  for  it.  Let  father  and  your  boys 
take  charge  of  things  at  home  —  prepare  for  a 
crop,  and  make  the  crop;  and  you  go  to  work  for 
the  best  money  wages,  or  in  discharge  of  any 
debt  you  owe,  that  you  can  get.  And  to  secure 
you  a  fair  reward  for  your  labor,  I  now  promise 
you  that  for  every  dollar  you  will,  between  this 

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and  the  first  of  next  May,  get  for  your  own  labor 
either  in  money  or  in  your  own  indebtedness,  I 
will  then  give  you  one  other  dollar.  By  this,  if 
you  hire  yourself  at  ten  dollars  a  month,  from  me 
you  will  get  ten  more,  making  twenty  dollars  a 
month  for  your  work.  In  this,  I  do  not  mean 
you  shall  go  off  to  St.  Louis,  or  the  lead  mines,  or 
the  gold  mines,  in  California,  but  I  mean  for  you 
to  go  at  it  for  the  best  wages  you  can  get  close 
to  home,  in  Coles  County.  Now  if  you  will  do 
this,  you  will  soon  be  out  of  debt,  and  what  is 
better,  you  will  have  a  habit  that  will  keep  you 
from  getting  in  debt  again.  But  if  I  should  now 
clear  you  out,  next  year  you  will  be  just  as  deep 
in  as  ever.  You  say  you  would  almost  give  your 
place  in  Heaven  for  $70  or  $80.  Then  you  value 
your  place  in  Heaven  very  cheaply,  for  I  am  sure 
you  can  with  the  offer  I  make  you  get  the  seventy 
or  eighty  dollars  for  four  or  five  months'  work. 
You  say  if  I  furnish  you  the  money  you  will 
deed  me  the  land,  and  if  you  don't  pay  the 
money  back,  you  will  deliver  possession  — 
Nonsense!  If  you  can't  now  live  with  the  land, 
how  will  you  then  live  without  it?  You  have 
always  been  kind  to  me,  and  I  do  not  now 
mean  to  be  unkind  to  you.  On  the  contrary,  if 
you  will  but  follow  my  advice,  you  will  find  it 


worth  more  than  eight  times  eighty  dollars  to 
you. 

Affectionately  your  brother, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  April  30,  1864. 
Lieutenant-General  Grant,— 

Not  expecting  to  see  you  again  before  the 
spring  campaign  opens,  I  wish  to  express,  in  this 
way,  my  entire  satisfaction  with  what  you  have 
done  up  to  this  time,  so  far  as  I  understand  it. 
The  particulars  of  your  plans  I  neither  know,  or 
seek  to  know.  You  are  vigilant  and  self-reliant ; 
and,  pleased  with  this,  I  wish  not  to  obtrude  any 
constraints  or  restraints  upon  you.  While  I 
am  very  anxious  that  any  great  disaster,  or  the 
capture  of  our  men  in  great  numbers,  shall  be 
avoided,  I  know  these  points  are  less  likely  to 
escape  your  attention  than  they  would  be  mine. 
If  there  is  anything  wanting  which  is  within  my 
power  to  give,  do  not  fail  to  let  me  know  it. 

And  now  with  a  brave  Army,  and  a  just  cause, 
may  God  sustain  you. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


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14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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